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Old Connecticut Town of Westmore= 
land in Pennsylvania.* 



During the Revolution the spot in 
Pennsylvania which we occupy to-night 
was in the New England town of West- 
moreland. It occupied soil that was 
claimed by two States. It was part of 
Pennsylvania's unbroken territory and 
it was separated from Connecticut by 
only the projecting lower portion of 
New York State. Seventy miles square, 
bounded on the north by the New York 
line and on the east by the Delaware 
River, Westmoreland County (for the 
town subsequently became a county), 
had a population of about 2,000 souls. 
The same territory now has a popula- 
tion 350 times' as great, or close to three- 
quarters of a million. It was a part of 
the nearest Connecticut county, and its 
members of the legislature had to go on 
horseback nearly 200 miles, much of 
the distance through a wilderness. It 
was for this fair region that Pennamites 
and Yankees struggled* in civil war for 
a generation. The governor of Con- 
necticut issiued a proclamation forbid- 
ding all settlements in Westmoreland 
except under the authority of Connecti- 
cut, while the governor of Pennsylvania 
warned all intending settlers that the 
claims of Connecticut were only pre- 
tensions and that no other authority 
than that of the Penns must bs recog- 
nized. The Indians had always been 
opposed to the settlement of this region 
tay the whites and made dire threats 
that were executed many times by 
bands of prowling savages. The inter- 
necine struggle between Connecticut 
and Pennsylvania was waged for a 
third of a century and was never in- 
terrupted except during the Rovlution- 
ary War, when by common consent 
both parties suspended their local strife 
and joined in a common defense against 



the growing oppressions of Great 
Britain. When the war clouds of the 
Revolution were gathering, but had not 
yet burst, a Connecticut man who was 
afterwards to play a part in the West- 
moreland settlement, was a missionary 
among the Six Nations. A treaty was 
in progress— one of great national im- 
portance, as one of its purposes was to 
fix a permanent boundary between the 
Indians and the whites. The council 
was held in the colony of New York and 
was attended by the governors of the 
interested colonies and by some 3.000 
Indians. It was dominated by the 
Penns, John Penn, a son of William 
Penn, being present. He wanted the 
lands in northeastern Pennsylvania 
which were claimed by Connecticut and 
which had been bought by Connecticut 
from the Indians some years previous. 
The commissioners had boatloads of 
gold and guns and gewgaws, and be- 
sides these an abundance of that argu- 
ment so potent with the Indians then 
and ever since — rum. It is needless to 
say the Penn interests prevailed. As 
Connecticut was not. invited to the 
council which was to wrest from her a 
part of her ex-territorial possession, the 
Wyoming region, this Connecticut mis- 
sionary xindeitnok — entirely without au- 
thority, however, — to defend the Con- 
necticut interest by dissuading the In- 
dians from selling to the Penns the land 
which Connecticut claimed. 

While the treaty was in progress the 
king's agent. Sir William Johnson, gave 
a banquet and the missionary, by rea- 
sion of his sacred office, rather than by 
reason of his being- a New Elngland 
man, was among the invited guests. 
The feast was made the occasion of 
bursts of eloquence as to the greatness^ 




* Paper read at Scranton, December 22, rgo^ before the New England Society 
of Northeastern Pennsylvania by F. C. fohnson, M. D., member of Wyo- 
ming Historical Society, Moravian titstorical Society, New England 
Historic-Genealogical Society, Etc. 



Y\'^S^ 



of England and toasts were drunk to 
the health of King- George III. Amid 
the noisy merrymaking of the con- 
vivial company the Connecticut mis- 
sionary could hear the muttering of the 
gathering storm, he could already feel 
with Patrick Henry that the next breeze 
from the north was to bring to their 
ears the clash of resounding arms. So 
when the adulations of the king were 
all over and the preacher from Con- 
necticut was called upon, the scene was 
not unlike that on the night when in 
the revel at Babylon there appeared, 
written across the wall in letters of 
fire those words which foretold the 
doom of Belsl-azzar. These are the mis- 
sionary's thrilling sentences: I drink 
to the health of King George III of 
Great Britain, comprehending New 
England and all the British colonies in 
North America, and I mean to drink 
such a health so long as his royal ma- 
jesty shall, govern the British and 
American subjects according to the 
great charter of English liberty, and so 
long as he hears the prayers of his 
American subjects. But in case his 
British majesty (which God in great 
mercy prevent) should proceed contrary 
to charter rights ar.d privileges, and 
govern us with a rod of iron, and the 
mouth of cannons and utterly refuse 
to consider our humble nrayers, then I 
should consider it my indispensable 
duty to join my countrymen in forming 
a new empire in Am.erica." 

It does not surprise us to learn that 
in after years when the missionary was 
pastor at Westmoreland he denounced 
the Pennamite outrages with such ve- 
hemence that he was dragged before 
the court and compelled to give bonds 
for his peaceable behavior. 

Two resolutions of the Westmoreland 
people in town meeting assembled soon 
after the snock of Lexington and 
Bunker Hill deserve to be remembered 
— one "to make any accommodation 
with the Pennsylvania party that shall 
conduce to the best good of the whole, 
and coine in common defense of liberty 
in America," and the ether was "to act 
in conjunction v.ith our neighboring 
towns within this and the other colo- 
nies in opposing the measures to en- 
.slave the colonies, and that we will 
unanimously join our brethren in 
America in the common cause of de- 
fending our liberty." This resolve was 
more than lived up to, for Westmore- 
land not only raised her quota of troops 
for the Continental Army, but she sent 
more and she kept on sending until she 
was left defenseless herself, except for 



a home guard, made up of such of her 
remnant of men and boys as were either 
too young or too old for service in the 
army. More than this, she out of her 
scanty resources armed and equipped 
duch companies as she sent to the 
front. 

Throughout the war the New Etig- 
landers in Pennsylvania were greatly 
irritated by certain of their neighbors 
who Avere not in sympathy with the re- 
volt against the mother country. It 
must be admitted that the Yankees of 
Westmoreland were pretty severe on 
these Tories, for the latter were repeat- 
edly expelled as spies and in some in- 
stances their properties were confis- 
cated. Driven from their farms by the 
Yankees, these Loyalists had no other 
recourse than to seek shelter at the 
nearest British stronghold, which was 
Fort Niagara. Their tales of the per- 
nicioiTs activity of the Westmoreland 
"rebels" in raising troops and in perse- 
cuting the Loyalists inspired the expe- 
dition which destroyed Wyoming in 1778 
— an expedition made up of a motley 
force of British soldiers, painted In- 
dians and smarting Tories. 

When news came from Niagara of 
the threatened invasion by the British, 
the Westmoreland officers and men in 
Washington's army pleaded to be al- 
loweci leave of absence that they might 
hasten to the defense of their families. 
On the ground that the public safety 
required their presence at the front the 
permission was not granted. As Miner 
says: "History affords no parallel of 
the pernicious detention of men under 
such circumstances. Wives wrote to 
their hsubands, begging them to come 
home, and many responded to the 
piteous call. Who can blame them for 
placing the pleadings of wives and chil- 
dren above the cruel order of their su- 
periors to remain at the front?" The 
fears of invasion were only too well 
founded. Butler and his combined force, 
came down the valley of the Susque- 
hanna and destroyed the settlement. 
Some of the patriots who had hastened 
to defend their families fell in the mem- 
orable battle. Out of the 400 Connecti- 
cut men in the fight only 100 came out 
alive, and John Butler stated in his of- 
ficial report that his Indians had taken 
227 scalps. The destruction of Wyo- 
ming by uncontrollable savages, led by 
a British officer, sent a thrill of hor- 
ror thi'ough the civilized world and a 
protest went up against such barbarous 
methods, methods entirely foreign to 
what we call modern and enlightened 
warfare. The people of England in- 



Aiithor. 

tP»rtnn\. 



stantly joined in denunciation of the 
turntng loose of savages upon defense- 
less frontiers and the tomahawking and 
scalping of fellow Anglo-Siaxons. That 
the conimander of the British invading 
force should in cold blood report that 
his Indians had taken hundreds of 
scalpsi — scalps for which the king was 
offering pay — caused the people of the 
mother country to cry out in shame 
against such inhuman warfare between 
civilized belligerents — belligerents, too, 
of the same blood. The sentiment in 
England in favor of the American colo- 
nies was strengthened, not only among 
the people, but on the floor of Parlia- 
ment, three of whose statesmen, Pitt and 
Wilkes and Barre, have been honored 
by having their names incorporated in 
two of our Wesitmoreland cities — 
Wilkes-Barre and Pittston. It is not 
going too far when we assert that this 
revulsion in England against the em- 
ploym.ent of savages by British officers 
had an influence in bringing the Revo- 
lution to a close. 

Not only was the Revolution shorten- 
ed by the reaction of the people of 
England from the destruction of Wyo- 
ming bj' savagesi, but it was perhaps 
shortened still further by the campaign 
the next year, when in order to make 
such horrors as that at Wyoming im- 
possible of repetition, Washington sent 
Gen. Sullivan with an expedition which 
ravaged the country of the Six Nations 
so completely that the great Indian 
Confederacy never engaged in another 
battle. Had it not thus been crushed 
the Indian allies of the British might 
have harassed the frontiers indefinitely 
and thus prolonged the revolution. 

While we are considering how the 
comparatively insignificant frontier post 
of Westmoreland was a factor in the 
Revolutionary War we may perhaps 
consider that the occupancy of the 
Wyoming region by the Moravian mis- 
sionaries for the two decades prior to 
the Revolution had an influence in 
shortening the struggle by holding some 
of the Indians friendly to the colonies, 
or at least bringing about their neu- 
trality. 

Throughout the entire Revolutionary 
M ar the Indians devast.ated the region 
with fire and hatchet, but the close of 
that great struggle witnessed no cessa- 
tion of suffering for the Connecticut 
settlers. The Pennsylvania govern- 
ment, which no longer had to fight a 
foreign enemy, now turned again with 
ferocity upon the Connecticut settlers, 
who were already impoverished by war. 
The climax of the Pennamite cruelty 



was reached when the soldiers obliter- 
ated the Connecticut boundaries and at 
the point of the bayonet dispossessed 
all the Connecticut claimants, and 
drove men, women and children across 
the wilderness to Connecticut on foot. 

How did the civil strife end? It ter- 
minated as strife usually ends, by com- 
promise. After a thirty years' war. 
with loss of life on both sides, the con- 
testants came to an agreement. The 
legislature of Pennsylvania a little 
prior to 1800 enacted several laws cal- 
culated to settle all differences fairly 
and justly. All Connecticut claimants 
who were actual settlers were given 
title from Pennsylvania on the payment 
of small sums. It took many years for 
Pennsylvania to recognize the rights of 
the Connecticut people and to make 
such concessions as would pacify them. 
The Connecticut peoi.ile, roused to des- 
peration, had undertaken to form a 
ncAV State out of northeastern Penn- 
sylvania. The movement wasi so far- 
reaching as to be aided by such promi- 
nent men as Oliver Walcott, Joel Bar- 
low and Ethan Allen of Ticonderoga 
fame. Pennsylvania became alarmed 
at a movement which threatened to dis- 
m.em.ber the State for a constitution 
had been drawn and officers decided 
uron by the revolutionists •. Under this 
pjessure Pennsylvania made conces- 
sions that were sati^factoiy to the 
Yankees. With the erection of the new 
Pennsylvania county of Luzerne the 
New England town of Westmoreland 
disappeared from, the map and remaiii- 
ed onl3' as a mem.ory. 

It would be interesting to trace the 
results that might have followed the 
form.dtion of a New Eingland State on 
soil claimed by Pennsylvania. Ethan 
Allen boasted that he had made one 
new State and that with 100 Green 
Mountain boys and 200 riflemen he could 
repeat Vermont in spite of Pennsylva- 
nia. Had not Pennsylvania nipped the 
project in the bud by conciliating the 
Yankees, a civil war, more far-reach- 
ing in its consequences than the Penna- 
mite war, Avould have resulted. Turbu- 
lent Yankees from all over New Eing- 
land would have rallied around Ethan 
Allen and a struggle would have ensued 
which might have involved the Union 
in it? disastrous consequences. 

It is interesting to know that of the 
Penn claim to Westmoreland there is a 
portion of the Sunbury Manor along 
Hiarvey's Creek in Luzerne County 
".till in the possession of the Penn heirs 
in line of succession under William 
Penn. 



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